Celebrated for his iconic portraits, John Singer Sargent was an early stylist to the names in the know, finds Amanda Hodges
LENT BY THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART
EXHIBITION
“I DO NOT JUDGE, I only chronicle,” said John Singer Sargent, the pre-eminent portrait artist of his day, now the subject of a new exhibition, Sargent and Fashion, at Tate Britain specifically exploring his innovative role as a stylist. Presented in tandem with the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the show features 60 paintings – familiar works from the Tate and MFA’s collections – and rarer items on loan.
What lends distinctive appeal is the fact that, alongside the paintings, several outfits depicted are also on display, some for the first time, allowing visitors to witness how Sargent used his keen eye for sartorial detail to interpret his sitters and their place in society. “Cultivate an ever-continuous power of observation,” he advised. “Wherever you are, be always ready to make slight notes of postures, groups and incidents,” and it was a philosophy that paid rich artistic dividends.
The cultured, multi-lingual Sargent had a peripatetic early life. He was born in Florence in 1856 to expatriate American parents, later training in Paris under French portraitist Carolus-Duran. Sargent’s early ideas of landscape painting gave way to a burgeoning career as a society portrait painter, then the route to a stabler income. He soon became renowned for his fluid style, technical proficiency and dazzling brushwork, consolidating his position amongst the fashionable and aristocratic elite.
James Finch, Assistant Curator of 19th-century British Art at Tate Britain, (this exhibition is co-curated with Erica Hirshler of MFA) says the choice of focus emerged naturally from “the realisation that one constant throughout Sargent’s career was his interest in fashion, both in how sartorial choices formed a key part of his subjects’ self-presentation and the opportunities presented as an artist.”
“You see him developing interests with certain colours, fabrics, and arrangements of clothing,” continues Finch, recalling something akin to the way an art director styles a fashion launch. “Having identified the centrality of fashion to Sargent’s practice, the next step was finding ways to bring fashion itself into the exhibition.” Along with accessories similar to those in Sargent’s ▸ portraits, several dresses actually worn by the sitters are available. “Being able to
